Nerotonin
Nerotonin was supposed to be the most valuable weapon against one of human's greatest plagues, yet ended up destroying the human race far more than anything else in history. Technically, Nerotonin is a series of artificial nano-viruses engineered by the pharmaceutical company Secronom Inc. as a cure for cancer. Although the first commercial versions did not carry out on this task, they became common in modern medicine due to their extraordinary healing capability. Only after expanding into the ambitious goal of curing cancer did Nerotonin become the scourge most now know it as. There are currently 4 known types of Nerotonin viruses: Nerotonin Type 1 Not much is known about Nerotonin type 1, since neither the resulting virus nor info about it was publicly released. The project was most likely a total failure, leading to a project overhaul and various genetic modifications of the virus along with the subsequent name change to Nerotonin 2. Nerotonin Type 2 Nerotonin-2 surpassed its predecessor as a practical medication and became an instant commercial success. Altering the metabolism of tissue, it fostered healthy growth at an extraordinary rate. Not simply muscle, or skin, but bone, internal organs, even nervous tissue. Previously handicapped persons showed signs of beginning to regain their original body functions in 45% less of the time needed for effort and cost intensive rehabilitation. Combat medics and emergency response teams now had a powerful tool to save lives in almost any situation. After preliminary testing conducted by the governments of the United States, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, and Japan, along with extended debate in the international medical community, the mostly unproven compound was approved for manufacture, with the condition that the government would need to approve the individual purchases. It has been theorized that Nerotonin-2 was released publicly to make up for the staggering losses created by "failures" within the expensive Project Nerotonin, and that Secronom had made quite a gamble with their rushed product. Despite relatively wide use, Nerotonin-2 was strictly made for use by professionals. It was never intended to be a fire and forget medication, and the consequences of overdosing were said to be dire, though officially, such instances were never reported. This was the main reason that each purchase had to be approved by the government. It has also been speculated that the careful regulation of Nerotonin may have been out of fear that such an all-inclusive substance would set the complex infrastructure of the international medical market off balance, rendering many fields obsolete and unneeded. The exact reasons may never be known, but Secronom managed to keep their miracle in the hearts, if not the hands, of the general populace. It was produced in large enough numbers to last through the initial outbreak. Today, vials of the blue-green substance, or even the silver cases of an entire kit, are coveted items amongst survivors, and only the most skilled and trusted of physicians are ever allowed to administer them. The ingrained fear of their misuse has made standard bandages, sutures and stitches the preferred tools of the medical profession, although ironically, some of these said dressings were treated with Nerotonin-2 to heal local tissue. It fulfilled various healing procedures far better than any other medication, but it failed to fulfill the initial goal - to eradicate cancer cells and prevent existing cells from turning into cancer tissue. In fact, the mechanism it operated off of was similar to a benign tumor: growth of damaged tissue, albeit self-moderated by the Nerotonin compound. With it's medical products selling across the globe, Secronom, gradually cut back the production of the "miracle medicine" Nerotonin-2. The next trick for Secronom would be synthesizing a compound that eliminated cancerous tissue and replaced it with healthy flesh. Nerotonin Type 3 & 4 While the infamous effects of the Nerotonin-3 / -4 virus are not fully understood, the general goals were well known. Nerotonin-3 was primarily engineered at the Secronom facility just outside of Grenoble in south France, where 109 volunteer test subjects were kept for studies about the virus effects. The high-tech compound, heavily armed security and massive amount of resources were readily supplied by the French government. The objective of the Nerotonin type 3 development was to engineer a virus with the same groundbreaking healing properties as type 2, but with the added capability of eliminating unstable tissue. Cancerous tissues can only be eliminated by outright removal or chemotherapy. Either method placed heavy strain on the patient and was subject to fail entirely. According to scavenged reports and interrogations with surviving Secronom personnel, the initial N-3 prototype virus was highly successful in destroying cancerous tissues - along with everything else. Apoptosis, or cellular suicide, is a process involved in normal growth. It allows organisms to form distinct body parts. This is regulated by the body throughout its entire life, and without a method of regulating N-3, mass cellular breakdown inevitably ensued. The exact circumstances during the last days at the laboratories are unknown, but apparently the Nerotonin type 3 prototype injections were either accidentally - or possibly even purposefully mixed with another virus sample in the Grenoble facility. Some popular theories suggest that Secronom may have been working at another virus at the same time, which was aimed at creating genetically enhanced soldiers - which would explain the unusually powerful muscles, the thick skin and the extreme aggression of all N4 infected. Another theory states that Nerotonin-3 may have simply mutated heavily after coming into contact with a working human nervous system, which led to the release of most natural blockades within the human muscle controls and thus extreme gain of strength - since the normal human body only allows a small amount of the actual muscle potential to get used, due to long-term survival purposes. Yet another theory pushed the idea that Secronom simply synthesized N-3 with N-2 to balance out the deterioration, causing an upwards spiral of reaction and mutation, explaining the series of both advantageous and negative traits that the Nerotonin mutations inevitably created. In the end, the virus showed the same results at every test subject - first a heavy nervous breakdown, loss of immunity system functions and eventually death. However, the subjects somehow revived themselves in less than an hour and eventually showed symptoms of heavy aggression towards the scientists, as well as extreme hunger. This apparently mutated version of the virus was nicknamed "Nerotonin-4" by the scientists, which later became the official name for the now highly infectious virus. The test subjects - now deemed totally uncontrollable due to mental instability - were scheduled for execution on the following day... which sadly never happened. Outbreak In the early Friday morning at June 28th, 2016 the facility was raided by the National Gendarmerie, the military police force of France, after various complaints about possible human abductions for illegal experiments, which freed the 109 highly infectious captives and sealed the doom of the civilized human world as we knew it. More about this topic can be found at these articles: * Outbreak * Secronom * Timeline Category:Background Story